Free Unnaturals by Lynna Merrill

enough for an intercity train ride probably, or two, or four.
    Mel had sent a message to Mom when she'd shouted at Eryn. Yet, she suddenly thought, what if Eryn realized it and sent Mom another one? What if Eryn lied to Mom?
    Everything was still and silent in the room. Especially the computers. Meliora would know if they were connected. She'd know if she could reach Mom. She thought she felt computers, sometimes, buzzing with people's emotions and thoughts. The computers were always there for her—except when someone messed them up.
    "You don't have the right!" She pounded on the door again.
    Useless.
    She went through the whole room by touch, inch by inch. Bare walls, bare floor—how about the ceiling? There was nothing to climb on and check, no footholds in the smoothly painted wall. She started scraping the paint and the mortar with her nails.
    By the time Eryn let her out, she'd climbed at least six feet up. She had no idea how far the ceiling was in that darkness. Her nails were bleeding, and she was so hungry and thirsty that even the light looked strange to her eyes.
    It was the end of brightlights period, Eryn told her with a smirk. The second brightlights after Mel had shouted. Mel sent a message to Mom. Her hands were trembling so much that she had to hum.
    Mel drank the bottle of water a servingstat shoved into her hands, then dragged herself to her room. She had a private home here. When naturals started their first job, they lived together with their colleagues and other new and old friends. Yet, young unnaturals must live alone, at least while they were learning.
    But learning what? That they were weak? That there were those above and those below in the world, and that someone like Eryn could do everything she wished? That, out there, people had no idea of this.
    Out there, all people supposedly did as they wished.
    Inside her room, Mel got a message from Adelaide.
    We are used to being told everything that we need to know, every moment of our lives. the message said. But this is only fine for naturals. We...we have always been different, Mel, but we haven't learned how to be different. This is why they are doing this to us. They are teaching us. Or, so I think.
    Oh, so she thought herself an expert now, this future Doctor of People? Adi's eyes usually darted just like those of a natural. She didn't speak much and messaged only a bit more often, and she hadn't been in the dark room. She didn't even have ACD. She read her feeds for only seconds at a time because she could not bear to read for longer, but according to Eryn she understood them. She didn't just browse like a grass-eating clumsy animal that could only think of its next meal. She built intuition, a subconscious system about people.
    Not that Eryn had deigned to explain what a grass-eating animal was.
    I can't sleep, Adi wrote to Mel.
    Mel was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.
    Neither can I. Who else could she write to and tell about Eryn and this place? Mom? She'd worry. Her thousands of friends? They wouldn't care. She wrote them " normal " things.
    I am lonely, Mel. I miss Mom and Dad. I write to them, of course, but somehow it is not the same any more. Somehow, Mel, right now it helps more to write to you.

    ***
    On the next day Meliora, Adelaide, and Ivan had a lesson with Doctor Theodore.
    "Hello, children." Theodore smiled at them.
    "Children, doctor? We thought we were adults." Mel smiled back, and Theodore laughed.
    "Ah, I forget. People think they are adults out there."
    Mel also laughed. Adi nodded, while Ivan shrugged and turned to watch the doctor's computer. "Now, we'll concentrate on..." Theodore started, and this time all three laughed.
    Theodore joined them a moment later.
    "Yes," he said, "I forget. You have been here for a very short time. The last five recruits before you came many months ago, and two have already left and one graduated. They soon learned what you three, too, will learn—it is all right to concentrate.